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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

AND OTHER POEMS 



THE 
DEATH OF SIR LAUNCELOT 

AND OTHER POEMS 

By 

condE benoist fallen 




Boston 

Small, Maynard & Company 

1902 



Copyright^ I go 2^ by 
Conde Bemist Fallen 



THE r.r BRAKY Ok"* 
CONGRESS, 

''.■in Ct'PM.;; RecEIVEE' 

i)L .:^ 1902 

lOPyRIOHT ENTBV 

Cf ASS ^ XXc Nc 

3-5 r M-3 



V'' 






\cio2. 



Pr«J of 

Geo. H. Ellis Company 

Boston, U.S.A. 



IN 
t4 

Ci TO THEODOKA. 

J 

^ To thee, God's gift, in whom all gifts unite, 

X In token of thy gift of love to me, 

§ Who feels that he receives unworthily, 

^^ I offer up this sheaf of songs, though slight 

* Their worth, and poorer still the singer be. 

Yet Love through me a fervent message sent j 

And I with feeble voice made faint reply. 

As reeds to summer breezes passing by 

Breathe out a quavering music, humbly bent 

Beneath the song, a trembling instrument. 

But thou, accepting these poor leafless lays. 

Wilt make amend for all imperfectness, 

As great ones taking in the taking bless, 

And in receiving render highest praise. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Death of Sik Launcelot 1 

To Omar Khatyam 27 

Other Poems: 

Love and Death 47 

Ode for Georgetown University 57 

Amaranthus 70 

Youth 76 

Aspiration 81 

Poet and Bird 83 

In Circe's Den 85 

On the Death of Alfred Tennyson 87 

Arise, America! 88 

The Raising of the Flag 91 

The Babe of Bethlehem 94 

Love Sole 97 

The Burden 98 

How Poets Play 99 

The Lower Bough 99 

Heaven 101 

Carmen Nuptiale 101 

Sonnets : 

Retrogression 105 

The Poet's Fane 1C6 

The Babe 107 



vn 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Sonnet 109 

Anarchy Ill 

Vanitas Vanitatum 112 

Love's Fruit 114 

March 115 

April 116 

Sonnet Sequence 117 



Vlll 



T:he DEATH 0/ SIR LAUNCELOT 



So groaned Sir Launcelot in remorseful pain. 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. ' ' 

Tennyson. 



"The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT. 

At Canterbury seven years a monk 
Sir Launcelot had abode. For Arthur passed, 
And all the goodly fellowship of knights 
Broken and scattered through his mighty sin 
With Guinevere, he sought to purge his guilt 
By prayers and fasting and the biting scourge 
Within the holy life, till chastened love, 
Freed from the clogging dross of earthly passion, 
Leap a shooting flame upward to Heaven. 

Seven years he there abode, and ever grew 
To holier ways, in spiritual might 
As great as erst his prowess in the lists, 
When first amongst the knights he overthrew 
All comers in the jousts and won the prize. 
And there he learned the smallness of his fame 
And all the greatness of his sin with power 
To drag down Arthur's mighty realm to ruin. 
And from the bitterness of that vast grief 
He fed his soul with constant tears to bloom 
In penitential fruits, for he was come 
To be a holy man with gift to see 
That time is shadow of eternity. 
And all the uses of our mortal hours 



The DEATH of SIE LAUI^CELOT 

But vanity, save as the generous seed 

Sown for the reaping in high heaven's demesne. 

And so Sir Launcelot waxed in holiness ; 
And from the ashes of his sinful past 
Stirred by the ceaseless breath of penitence, 
Blew, first, the fainting spark of higher love, 
And last, the glowing fire, whose lambent flame 
Eat out the grossness of the carnal will, 
And, then, with ardent tongue aspiring leaped 
To union with celestial fires, whence came 
The heat and quickening of its swift desire. 

And in the furnace of that inward love 

The man was changed beyond all mortal know- 

For he had dwined away to ghostliness, 
Until the shining spirit burned and glowed 
Through flesh and bone worn to translucency. 
And all his face shone like Sir Galahad's, 
"Who saw the Holy Grail, and like to hers, 
The virgin sister of Sir Percival, 
Who sent the deathless ardor of her eyes 
In Galahad's, and made her virgin purpose 
One with his virgin will, forever wed 
To chastity and to the higher life, 
Till caught up in an ecstasy he passed 
Beyond, in vision of the Sacred Cup. 

2 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

But Launcelot came to holiness by penance, 
Like stubborn ore seven times over passed 
Through the refiner's fire, till it come forth 
Pure golden, purged of all its earthiness 
And alien dross. For many ways has God 
To draw His creature to Himself, and steep 
It in the gracious furnace of His love : 
Some as Sir Galahad through innocence. 
Whose white flower blossomed from his cradled 

years. 
Some as the holy nun through human love, 
Which rooted first in man's frail faith withered, 
But after grew to fruit in heavenly soil ; 
And some as Launcelot through the dolorous 

way 
Of penance cleansing all the sinful past 
With prayer and fasting, till this mortal house 
Grow luminant with grace, and in the eyes 
The spirit shines with love's interior flame, 
Like windows glowing with an inner light 
From out an ancient hall, wherein they hold 
High feast for coming of their absent lord. 
After long years of exile from his hearth. 

For after that great battle in the west. 

Where Arthur smote the traitor Modred down, 

And wounded sore was borne by Bedivere 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Down to the margin of the sleeping mere, 
And went into the barge that hoved there, 
And passed with those three hooded queens, who 

holped 
The fainting king unto the happy isles. 
Sir Launcelot, heavy with the grievous word. 
Came back from over seas, and sought the queen 
At Almesbury, whither she had fled the wrath 
Of Arthur, knowing not the king would come 
To bless her with forgiveness, not to bane. 

And there to be a holy nun the queen 
Abode, and clothed herself in black and white, 
As nuns are wont, veiling her beauty's fire 
"With weeds of penance, as evening's ardourous 

star 
Burns all enclouded in the vapourous west. 
When heaven weeps a dying day of autumn, 
Sinking behind grey banks of broken storm. 

And hither over seas Sir Launcelot came. 
When Arthur passed and bold Sir Gawain died ; 
And sought the queen, thinking within his heart 
Old thoughts, that came and went and came again 
Like sudden birds on winter's leafless boughs 
Chattering a noisy chorus for the food 
They find not, locked within the whitened land 

4 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Forgetful of the summer's lavishness. 
Aud so the memories of the summer hours 
Came fluttering in the winter of his grief, 
Where all was barrenness, and found no place 
Of solace for the bitterness of joys 
Long past, remembered sweets but present pangs. 
And all the glamour of his fame died out 
Within his heart and lay in dust and ashes, 
Like fires gone out within a wasted land. 
And making lamentation for his sin. 
His soul grew black as death with gathering pain 
At seeing the vast emptiness of life 
Wrought in the vanity of things long passed ; 
And all the shadows of his vanished days 
Trooped mockingly before him as to say : 
''Behold the wraiths of thine own deeds misdone, 
And all the hollowuess of time misspent. ' ' 
And pointing ghostly fingers at him, jeered 
Accusingly, aud beat him down in shame. 
Aud what of good and pure he once had wrought 
Drew back affrighted, wailing at the strength 
Of evil deeds grown old with years of custom. 

And so as in a swoon Sir Launcelot lay, 
Sunk in the blackness of that ghostly night, 
Unrecking time and all the world about : 
And from the dripping east the sunless day 

5 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Eose heavily, and wheeled a clouded arc 
Through weeping skies down to the shrouded 

west, 
And sank in darkness, o'er the world's blurred 

rim. 
And the bare woodland's leafless limbs made 

moan 
"With requiem winds dirging the dying year. 
That, whistling through the empty rookeries, 
Shrilled ghostly music in the abbey towers. 
But Launcelot lay and heeded not, lost 
Within the deeper night that whelmed his soul j 
Till on the second day the abbey bell. 
Clanging its noisy message o'er the walls. 
With sudden onset smote his startled ear, 
And roused his smothered soul from out its swoon, 
While through the wakening senses poured the 

tides 
Of life in rushing streams of sight and sound. 

Then rising up Sir Launcelot strode a pace 
And reeled with giddiness, but onward pressed 
And stood before the abbey's massy gates ; 
And thereon smiting with his hilted sword. 
The startled corridors grew clamourous 
With replicated echoes rumbling far 
Like distant thunder through the cloistered cells, 

6 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCBLOT 

And into solemn silence died again. 

And hearing, Guinevere rose up and paused ; 

And all lier heart went trembling through her 

limbs ; 
But praying, on high God she called to stay 
Her weakness, and in the sacred power of prayer 
Gathered the scattered forces of her will, 
Resolved against herself and him, who came 
To plead against her better self and his. 
Once only, for a little moment, swayed 
Her resolution, when she heard the craunch 
Of armed footsteps on the virgin flags. 
Wavered a sudden instant, then rooted firm. 
And Launcelot coming saw, and stood amazed, 
Scarce knowing her ; for all unlike the queen. 
Whose beauty flashed of yore in Arthur's court 
From snowy arms of rounded perfectness 
And shoulders purer than the lily's glow, 
Crowned with a wanton wealth of sunny hair 
Above the fulness of her columned throat, 
Her queenly stature rose before him robed 
And veiled in solemn folds of black and white, 
Her lustrous beauty chastened and eclipsed. 
Yet temperately shining through her garb 
Of soberness, as pearls a radiant moon 
Behind a fleece of clouds illuminate 
With hidden liarht. 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

"With broken voice at first, 
Like brooklet hesitating over flats 
And shallows, but gathering fuller flood and 

depth 
At last flows smooth and strong through widen- 
ing fields, 
She spake to Launcelot sunken on his knee 
In knightly courtesy : '^Through thee and me, 
Sir Launcelot, all the goodliest fellowship 
Of knights the needful world has ever seen 
Is utterly dispersed, and Arthur's work, 
The building of a realm of love and law. 
Wherein the man is lord of beast and lust. 
And Christ is King (O blind was I not seeing !) 
Is all undone ; and treason, war and death 
Have seized upon the realm and ravened it. 
Laying the land all waste and desolate ; 
Till wolves now sniff the blackened hearth, 

where men 
Were wont to sit before their household blaze ; 
And all the fields lie choked with riotous weeds, 
Where waxed the bearded grain laughing to 

heaven 
With plenty, sowed and reaped in Arthur's 

peace, 
From shore to shore through lengthening year to 
year. 

8 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Through me and thee hath all this ill been 

wrought ; 
For in our sinful love this grief has come 
Upon the land, and on us lies the dole 
Of uupurged guilt, who sinned so easily 
And erred so greatly, seeing now how deep 
The wound we wrought so lightly, and how sore 
The hurt, whence comes confusion and the death 
To all that Arthur built so beautiful. 
So wit thou now, Sir Knight, my soul's sad 

plight, 
And how I seek God's pardon having hope 
In Christ's high blood for my soul's after health. 
And yet to see His Blessed Face through grace 
Of God when I have purged me of my sins 
In this quiet house of prayer, and laid aside 
The frailty of this flesh through which I sinned. 
For well I know in heaven is many a saint, 
"Who sinned as I, yet after won the height 
By Christ's dear mercy and his precious blood. 
Wherefore, Sir Launcelot, I beseech thee go ; 
Leave thou me here to work my penance out, 
That rooting up the tares of time abused, 
I sow celestial seed for heavenly gain ; 
For well as I have loved thee sinfully, 
My heart forbids I love thee shamefully, 
As once I loved forgetful of my place 

9 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

And that high destiny wherein I failed 5 

And this I pray for thy soul's health and mine. 

Farewell ! betake thee to thy realm again, 

And guard it well from war and wrack, and there 

Take thee a wife for joy and for an heir 

To bear thy name and do thy work hereafter ; 

Till righted be the wrong of our misliviug, 

And from the ashes of the dolorous past 

Push forth the blossom of a fairer hour, 

In promise of the nobler fruit to come 

Now blighted by the canker of our loves." 

And Launcelot kneeling bowed his knightly 

head, 
And felt his heart strain 'gainst his corselet's 

girth, 
Well -nigh to bursting with the swollen floods 
Of grief surging and shocking in his ears 
At thought of his unknightly faithlessness, 
Made naked and ashamed by utter truth 
Of her calm words accusing and accused. 
And groaning answered Launcelot sore at heart : 
'■ ' Would ye, sweet Madame, that I go again 
Unto my country ? Nay, I never shall ; 
Nor take me there a wife ; for on high God 
I call, that I in thee have ever had 
Mine earthly joy, and false shall never prove. 

10 



The DEATH of SIR LAUKCELOT 

ISTow wit thee well, I make a knightly vow, 

That ne'er again in other shall I joy ; 

But that same choice which thou hast made, I 

make ; 
And hence will seek the holy life to mend 
My grievous past for Jesu's sake and health 
Of mine own soul. For now I see full well 
The mickle vanity of praise, and how 
A summer cloudlet puffed by wanton winds 
Our slender hour of fame is blown and lost 
Within the endless vaultage of the skies. 
1^0 more I seek the glory of the field 
Or tourney's prize, a little dust of deeds 
Raised by the fitful breath of jealous time 
To settle back upon its native earth , 
In dust again beneath the heedless feet 
Of men remembering not. And since, my 

Queen, 
Ye have renounced the sounding world's rank 

pomp 
To seek the perfect way for Jesu's sake, 
I one with thee in all that grievous past, 
And knowing now the canker at the root 
Of love that runneth not the course of God, 
Must needs of right seek out the prayerful way, 
And follow it with hope in Christ's high blood 
Of sin forgiven and of pardon won. 

11 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Farewell ! and I beseech thee let thy voice 
Go up to heaven for me as mine for thee, 
That seeing how we wronged high God together^ 
And each made other's hurt in cither's love, 
Together we may storm the citadel 
Of His vast mercy, each in other's prayers 
Winning Christ's healing for the other's wound."' 
And saying Launcelot rose, and going passed 
The abbey's massy gates, that closed behind, 
And sent their muffled clang to where the queen 
Stood, a statue marbled into grief, 
Then like a fainting lily swayed and fell 
Prone, till ministered by tender hands 
Of holy women loving and beloved. 

And Launcelot through the naked forest rode. 
Like one who wanders witless in a dream. 
Nor heeded aught the roar of lashing boughs 
Tumultuous with tempestuous blasts icy 
With winter and keen as fangs of famished 

wolves. 
A day and night he rode, nor recked the way. 
Till on the morning of the second sun 
He chanced upon a hermitage, where dwelt 
A holy man wasted with fasts and prayer. 
And Launcelot there alighting knelt him down^ 
And crying out besought the holy man 

12 



The DEATH of SIE LAUKCELOT 

To shrive him and assoil him, come to make 
Amend to Heaven by penitence and prayer 
For years of guilty love heavy with hell. 

And knowing him the hermit blessed and spake 
Large words of comfort and of Jesu's love, 
And to his crying harkened shriving him ; 
And bade him strip him of his shining mail j 
And on him placed the habit of a monk, 
The sober garment of the world of prayer. 
And token of the will to perfect life 
In him who walks no more the paths of men 
But treads the single way of Christ. 

So dwelt 
Sir Launcelot at the hermitage, a monk 
In arduous striving for the perfect life. 
And fierce at first the struggle with the flesh 
Tyrannous with th' unbrooked sovereignty of 

years. 
And lean and hollow-eyed he waned ghost-like, 
Wrestling against the might of evil habit 
Grown stronger year by year as saplings grow 
Eing by ring into the stubborn oak. 
And beaten down a many times he rose 
Again by strength of prayer and penitence, 
And slowly waxed in spiritual power. 

13 



The DEATH of SIR LAUXCELOT 

Oft-times, when heaven stood at middle night, 
And all the world was laid in sleep, there came 
Upon him half awake and half adream, 
Soft phantoms wooing him with sensuous breath 
To break his steadfast will and drag him down. 
Anon Queen Guinevere bent over him 
And swept his lips with velvet touch of hers, 
Or Vivien, her almond eyes half veiled, 
Erom under drooping lids shot languorous light- 
nings ; 
Or Queen Iseult tossing resplendent arms, 
Her raven tresses streaming down about 
The snowy drifts of gleaming shoulders, beckoned 
And called with amorous parted lips breathing 
The heavy sweetness of the ripened rose ; 
And Launcelot starting up and crying out 
Beat 'gainst the hollow air with frantic hands, 
And heard, or seemed to hear, a mocking laughter 
Drifting away into the outer night 
"With muttered imprecations echoing back : 
And on him stood great drops of agony, 
Lest yielding, e'en in thought, he fall again 
Into the noisome pit, whence he had toiled 
To purer heights. And seizing on the scourge 
That ever lay beside his hand, he smote 
The recreant flesh and beat the lusting down. 
And fell to prayer ; till morning creeping up 

14 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

The murmuriug east noosed all the hills with 

light, 
And wold and dale and all the shadowed woods 
Silvered with benediction of the dawn j 
And Launcelot, overwearied, kneeling slept, 
And dreamed no more. And so at last he qnellei 
The flesh, and made it subject to his will, 
As docile as his knightly charger once 
To voice and rein in joust or roaring war. 
Thus broken was the power of hell to weave 
Foul phantasies before his dreaming brain, 
Wrought from the sensuous vapours of the past, 
Like lingering mists above a dark morass, 
Until the sharj) pure air of heaven blow 
And di"ive the fetid shades away, and down 
Prom crystal spaces shine the steadfast stars. 

But one sole victory gaineth not the walls 
Of Heaven, where battlemeuted gleams afar 
The City of the Saints ruby with love. 
And Launcelot longing for that distant glory, 
As keenly as of old for human fame. 
Strove mightily in prayerful contemplation 
To win the flashing splendour of the height. 

But God, lest he should lean upon himself 
Forgetful that the soul is tempered true 

15 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Only within humility's black forge 

Under the hammer of adversity, 

As ruddy iron under the smith's swift blows, 

Withdrew Himself, and left him desolate. 

And Melancholy breathed her heavy night 

Upon his soul, and leaden weighed him down 

To an abysmal darkness void and stern : 

And calling out in agony his voice 

Went from him echoless, and silence pierced 

Him through and through like sword of ice 

numbing 
His speech and freezing all his powers of 

thought, 
Save only the black memory of his sins, 
That ever rose a creeping tide of foulness 
To whelm him under ; and isolation spread, 
Deathlike, without the blessedness of death. 
Innumerable spaces round about. 
Until the universe seemed blotted out 
Of time and place, and he, sole being plunged 
In nothingness, shuddering in the void 
Eavened by utter emptiness of self. 
Then sudden seemed he snatched and lifted up 
Within the grasping of some mighty palm, 
And set down in a solitary waste 
Of blackened sand and rock blasted of eld 
By primal fires j and poured out like a pool 

16 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

Of leaden waters lay his sluggish soul 
Within a hollow of the barren plain, 
So dun no star thereon could find its shadow, 
Though all the heavens blazed with arrowy 

lights. 
A voiceless shade upon its banks he stood 
Gazing with fearful eyes, that could not weep, 
Upon the heavy surface of the pool. 
That slowly stirred with sluggish undulations 
Oozing and bubbling up from slimy depths ; 
And therein creeping creatures foul with mire 
Rose writhing twisted in a hundred knots, 
Uncoiling serpent shapes that coiled again. 
Flickering malignant tongues and hissing hat«. 
And from the distant gloom of circling sands 
Came hollow laughter pealing mockingly. 
And gibing voices shrilling as to say : 
'^Behold thyself, that thinkest to take high 

heaven ! ' ' 
And 'twixt the wriggling horror of the pool 
And those shrill voices seemed he plunged in 

hell, 
Cast out of Love and doomed of God forever. 
Nor could his tongue find utterance, nor prayer 
Wing upward from his heart in utter shame 
Of his unworthiness, seeing his soul 
Spilled out in all the foulness of his sins. 

17 



The DEATH of SIR LAUl^CELOT 

And so he seemed to stand eternally, 

Helpless and hopeless, scorned of Heaven and 

Hell; 
Then sudden on the far horizon shone 
A little light that grew resplendent coming, 
And growing flung lances of fire across 
The sands scattering the shadows of the waste, 
Till all the pool was silvered into white ; 
And looking, he beheld it crystal pure ! 
And all the air glowed red with crimson flame, 
That wrapped him close and ravished him with 

sweetness ; 
While round him swept the radiance of a host 
Charging as from a leaguered city's walls 
To rescue of a fallen knight begirt 
By hurtling foes ; and in the crystal pool 
Behold — its gleaming towers and turrets mir- 
rored — 
The city of God rose-red ! And all its walls 
"Were thronged with aureoled saints shouting 

Hosannas, 
And waving golden palms ; and parapet 
And base, and all the glowing space between, 
Builded of serried ranks angelical. 
Arm linking arm and wing enfolding wing, 
Breathed harmonies of blended canticles 
Flaming like fountained fire, that spouted forth 

18 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

Rivers of rushing melody flooding 

Swift light leaping in seas of glory, 

Till height responsive unto height trembled 

With song of all the Sons of God crying, 

"Behold the Love that conquereth forever ! " 

And Launcelot by that splendour pierced and 

rapt, 
"Was lifted from the night of desolation, 
And made to shine in spiritual glory 
Upon the heights of holiness, and knew 
His mighty sin forgiven and Heaven won 
By utter gift of God, who casteth down 
And lifteth up out of pure love to win 
His creature to Himself. 

And ever after 
The vision of the City of the Saints 
Abode within him, shining in his eyes 
With holy flame and lighting all his face 
With love, till they that looked upon him, mar- 
velled. 
And as a music playing was his presence, 
Making glad harmonies with all about, 
Till savage beasts ate gently from his hand, 
And birds came fluttering round him lovingly ; 
And when he passed the rose flamed deeper red, 

19 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Unfolding all her heart and breathing out 

A richer perfume to the joyous air ; 

So great was love within him shining forth. 

And when Sir Bors, and others after him, 
Came seeking Launcelot, finding him a monk 
They marvelled greatly seeing him so changed. 
But by the deathless fire allured, that burned 
Celestial beacons in his eyes, and held 
By music of his voice that seemed attuned 
To heavenly choirs, they would not forth again 
Into the discord of the world : and won 
Through Launcelot to the love of higher things, 
Abode with him, and took the ashen garb 
Of penitence ; and following Christ alone 
Strove ever for the perfect life : and so 
There gathered round him seven knights, who erst 
Had followed him and worshipped him ; and now 
They followed him no less, but worshipped God 
Alone, by his ensample drawn and led. 

And now the seventh year in heaven's orb 
Had wheeled its round, since Launcelot sought 

the perfect life ; 
And it was close upon the Easter hour, 
When earth had cast her winter weeds aside, 
And baring all her breast to wooing suns, 

20 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Felt slender flutterings of the baby spring 
Stirring within her quickened zone, while field 
And forest prescient of the coming hour, 
Grew tender with the creeping sap tinging 
The melting wold with hesitating green, 
And softening all the boughs with timid buds. 
And Launcelot granted by Heaven to know his 

hour, 
That he should pass at Easter-tide, calling 
His seven brethren, spake in ghostly words 
Clothed with the sad authority of death : 
"Now ye who love me in the love of Christ, 
Hearken my words, who am about to die ; 
For keen was I for earthly fame, loving 
The incense glory from the lips of men, 
Not knowing then the higher life in God, 
Nor seeking Him, but serving mine own honour, 
Eucrowned by pride upon a throne of sand. 
And lusting in the flesh I lived my life 
Besottedly, and God's high purpose turned 
To basest use, making of human love — 
"Whence flowers our kind upon the stalk of time 
For God's own plucking in eternal life — 
A sink of passion and a pit of death. 
And sinning in the flesh with one that stood 
Upon the pinnacle of mortal greatness. 
Made sin a brazen trumpet to the world, 

21 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

Till others from our scandal drawing license 
Sinned also, blindly deeming that light fault, 
Whose foulness borrowed lustre from high names. 
And so the sins of many burdened me 
Besides mine own, and weighed me down in 

shame. 
But God, who willeth not the sinner's death, 
Is mighty in His Love, whose arm is mercy 
And reacheth out to snatch us from the hell 
Our sin has made, if we but will to come. 
And I that hung upon the trembling bpink. 
Was plucked from those eternal gulfs of loss 
By power of Jesu's blood spilled for us all ; 
And though unworthy, crying out was heard. 
For marvellous the grace of God ; and none 
So low, but he may rise and live again. 
Putting forth buds of righteousness by heat 
Of that high Love falling upon the seeds 
Of penance sown within the furrowed fields 
Of humbleness ; for pride resisteth grace, 
And they that will not are as barren rock. 
Wherefore in me see God's great miracle 
Of Jesu's love triumphant over sin ; 
For none was greater sinner in the flesh 
Than I, whose sin was more than lust, seeing 
It grew to be the scandal of the realm. 
And sapped the props of Arthur's house to ruin. 

22 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCBLOT 

But God encompasseth the wickedness 

Of men, and though we break His ordinance, 

And send sin's discord through the groaning 

world, 
And see no healing of the hurt in time, 
The arms of Love eternally uphold, 
[ And Mercy maketh music in the heavens, | 
That girdle us around with harmonies 
Unheard save by the spiritual ear 
Beyond the lagging sense's evidence. 
And he that feareth justice findeth mercy 
With outstretched arms to take him to her bosom. 
As mothers take the thirsting babe to breast ; 
But he that scorneth mercy and will not, 
"Within the hands of justice shall be held 
Apart, eternally shut out from Love 
Inviolate, that wooed him all in vain. 
Wherefore that all who knew me in the weeds 
Of worldliness, may see in me the flower 
Of mercy burgeoning by Jesu's love, 
I pray ye bear my body through the land, 
When I am dead, to Joyous Gard, and there 
Let all men come to look upon my face, 
That seeing, they may know the ways of God, 
And in the knowing some amend be done 
For my great sin. ' ' And ceasing, quiet as waters 
Flowing from shallows into deeps, his voice 

23 



TJie DEATH of SIE LAUN^CELOT 

Grew still, and o'er his face death's shadows 

crept 
As daylight waning ashens into night ; 
And breathing deep in one long-drawn sigh, 
As sleepers breathe, his soul went gently forth. 

And kneeling all his brethren prayed high God, 
And wept for love of him, and yet withal 
Felt gladness, knowing him a holy man, 
And how he longed for Heaven, not fearing death. 

Then rising up, with reverent hands they placed 
Him on a bier, and going forth took road 
To Joyous Gard. 

And it was Easter-tide, 
And all the earth had quickened into flowers, 
And all the air was redolent of May ; 
And cope and copse rang revelry with songs 
Of feathered joys awaked from winter's sleep 
By new-born suns within the tender blue 
Of skies liquid with spring's ethereal breath. 
And through the joyous season as they went 
The gladness of the world lifted their hearts 
Thinking upon their risen Lord and death 
O'ereome by his great victory, and how 
The man they bore had won the eternal pearl. 

24 



The DEATH of SIE LAUKCELOT 

And such a fragrance from him came as seemed 
Death had no part in him, and on his face 
A light as from a lamp of holy oils 
Earning before the Body of our Lord. 
And all their going was a sweet spring tune, 
Swelling from earth and air and blossomed 

brake : 
Above the bier carolled the wheeling birds ; 
The little creatures in the grass chorused 
A soft insistent note, and in the fields 
The grazing kine lifted their patient heads, 
And lowed a mellow greeting as they passed. 
From thorpe and town the people came and 

gazed 
At them, and wondering looked upon the face 
Of him they bore, and seeing greatly marvelled, 
And followed reverently : so when they came 
To Joyous Gard, the multitude had swelled 
Unto a host, as when a people come 
In homage of a king. And in the quire 
They laid him down, that all might come and 

see. 
And noble lords and ladies came and saw, 
And marvelled thinking on the grace of God. 
And many that were still in sin, were changed. 
And followed Christ thereafter. And lastly 

came 

25 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Sir Ector, Launcelot's brother, making dole ; 
But when he saw his face he wept no more, 
And straightway casting off his sword and helm, 
He vowed him after to the holy life. 

And now twice seven days Sir Launcelot lay 
On loft, and all the people came and saw, 
And none that came but marvelled seeing him 
And all the whiles his seven brethren sang 
And read the psalters over him and prayed, 
Their voices going up both night and day 
Like incense from a golden censer swung. 
And on the fortnight came the Bishop there, 
And praying sang a requiem over him. 
And offered up the Holy Sacrifice 
Of Christ's own Blood and Body for his soul ; 
And when the Sacred Host was lifted up, 
Blood red it shone, and rosy sparkles flashed 
Through all the quire, and sounds of voices 

came 
From far off like a mighty host rejoicing, 
Then died away as of a people going 
Within a city's gates ; and fading waned 
The rosy red upon the chancel's walls 
Like evening's purple with the setting sun. 



26 



TO OMAR KHAYYAM 



Wisdom is easily seen by them that love her, and is found 
iy them that seek her. For she goeth about seeking such 
as are worthy of her, and she showeth herself cheerfully 
in the ways, and meeteth them with all providence. . . . 

Wisdom, VI. 



TO OMAE KHATTAM. 

Old Omar, subtle weaver of the skein 
Of doubt entangled in thy perplexed brain 
In that far East which saw thine ancient day, 
This later hour awakes thy voice again, 

And in a newer tongue recasts the phrase. 
That doubled glibly in thine olden ways 
On life and death and those dark questionings 
Which doubt may answer not, though doubt may 
raise. 

This newer vase that holds thine ancient wine 
Is rich with lines as gracious as were thine, 
As delicately graved, as featly traced 
With clinging tendril of the worshipped vine. 

Nor deem I that the pouring of thy song 
From old to newer vessel does thee wrong ; 
For deft the hand that fashioned the new clay, 
A master's hand, and, as a master's, strong. 

Nor strange that he should seek thine unfaith 

out. 
Who felt a kindred sympathy in doubt 

29 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

In this wild day when creeds have crumbled 

down, 
Blown like the dust of simoons 'round about. 

For that old plaint which sickened thy soft soul, 
And to thy lips held up the poisoned bowl 
Made luscious with the nectars of the sense, 
Still sings your song and echoes all its dole. 

And though his noisy doubt the newer man 
Boast as fresh light upon the marching van 
Of progress to the piping fife of change, 
Your doubt was ancient ere his doubt began. 

For you, as he, sang faith and unfaith's strife. 
And he, as you, chants death the bourne of life ; 
He now, as you a thousand years ago. 
Into the heart of faith drives deep the knife. 

Thy dubious hand upon the shifting scale 
Touched every trembling note, drew every wail, 
Sounded each plaint and struck each quivering 

chord } 
He now as you of old — to what avail ? 

As dark a riddle is that silent fate 
To the blind sceptic of this later date, 

30 



To OMAE KHAYYAM 



As ever answered cot to thy light word, 
Who asked in dalliance at the outer gate. 

For truth speaks only at the inner shrine, 
Not in the tavern where they spill the wine ; 
Pours only through the cleansed and chastened 

sense 
The cryptic sweetness of the living vine. 

To list thy lilting numbers' softened strain. 
And hear it chiming with the rhythmed pain 
Thy later brothers plaint on modern lutes, 
Wakes smiling comment on their little gain. 

Alas, that you in mediaeval years 

Sang all their doubts, shed all their hopeless 

tears. 
Their creedless creed in all its changes rang, 
And coined their wisdom in your shallow fears. 

Science but now, they cry with echoing bruit, 
Has plucked the higher wisdom's ripened fruit, 
Achieved the summit of a nobler view, 
And struck in wider knowledge deeper root. 

Yet all the garnered learning of the age 
Has added not a tittle to your page j 

31 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Of that first truth and last the soul desires 
Your word as wise as theirs, your wit as sage. 

Tour wit and theirs both dark as starless night, 
Searching the universe with candle-light, 
Agrope within the same abyss of dread, 
"Where depth grows black with depth and height 
with height. 

In vain they seek, as vain you sought, the clue, 
Where doubt makes mocking shadows of the true^ 
Dissolves the answer in the question's breath, 
The doubt that asks from doubt that never knew^ 

And echo questioned back the mockery flings. 
And doubt that asks of doubt with unfaitk 

rings ; 
Responsive to the fingers wail the strings. 
And as you key the patient chord, it sings. 

You drew the music of your plaintive strain 
From the sore grief of Philomel's sad pain, 
But dashed the sweetness of her chastened song 
With doubt, and poisoned all its balm with bane- 

You sang, and sadly sweet your olden rhyme. 
The fleeting footsteps of the phantom time, 

32 



To OMAE KHAYYXM 



The dying sweetness of the hastening rose, 
Life's transient blush undone by death's swift 
crime. 

Tea, vanity in him, who lays up store 
Of hope to reap his harvest on time's shore, 
And sowing all the fields that lie around, 
Prepares the granary and the threshing floor. 

Ah, swift the courses of the rushing sun. 
And changeful are the glittering hours that run 
Twixt hope's first blossom and the blown flower^ 
For evening sees not what the morn begun. 

And Csesar's dust beneath a peasant's feet, 
For wisdom's eloquence were theme replete. 
How levelled by the sweeping scythe of time. 
Fame and unfame in one oblivion meet. 

So has the ages' wisdom ever sung, 
And from earth's hollow glories wailing rung 
The tribute of its dole : not new your song, 
^ov new the lesson of your mellow tongue. 

Though Jamshyd long has quaffed the last black 

draught. 
And Caesar, smitten by the bitter shaft 

33 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

That pricked his glory's bubble, heedless sleeps, 
Their dust but shallow soil for wisdom's graft. 

The rose you sing from Caesar's clay that blows 

Like Csesar's glory for an instant shows, 

And crumbles back to that from whence it 

bloomed ; 
From dust it came and unto dust it goes. 

Mortal to mortal is the primal law, 

Earth back to earth again the whole world's saw : 

Mortality is written broad and deep, 

And fools that run the easy lesson draw. 

Yes, easy is the folly that seems wise, 
And cloaks short knowledge in a long disguise ; 
Easy the truth that time is swift of flight, 
The flower that blooms to-day, to-morrow dies. 

Easy to drown, the heedless cup within, 
The gruesome memory of the death and sin. 
That racked the soul with their black question- 
ings. 
And as unbidden guests of old stalked in. 

Nor you the first, nor last, to thrust them out 
And welcome in their place a reeling rout 

34 



To OMAE KHAYYXm 



Who drink and question not, but steep in floods 
Of mellow vintage all the ghosts of doubt. 

Brief wisdom and short triumph your poor plot 
To cheat the destiny the years allot 
By drowning memory in a shallow cup ; — 
Though now forgetting, you are not forgot. 

And while you wander in a vinous mist 
Through roseate ways as your soft pleasures list, 
The spinner Time still plies his tireless loom, 
And you and Death are drawing to the tryst. 

What answer then in that appointed place. 
When he breathes cold upon your yellowing face, 
What answer echoing from the empty cup ? 
Eemorse within the lees, think you, or grace ! 

To-day the chosen mistress of your lot, 
To-MOEROW banned and yesterday forgot : 
Lo, YESTERDAY accuses from the dead ; — 
To-MOREOW beckons for to-day is not : 

Fast running out the limit of your thread, 
To-day and yesterday forever sped ; 
The whirling loom roars distantly and faint. 
And all your years are ashes with the dead. 

35 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

So careful of the present and its joys, 
Hoarding like children all the broken toys ; 
The little wrecks now strew the dusty floor, 
And you forgotten with your childish noise. 

So careful now within your eager hands 

That not a grain shall waste of time's swift 

sands — 
The very grain you clutch has trickled through ; 
To-day holds not what yesterday demands. 

To-DAY but borrows what to-morrow lends, 
And pays to yesterday what now it spends, 
And debtor still with nothing of its own 
A bankrupt in the hands of Death it ends. 

"Why stake on nothingness the all you own, 
And cast life's ashes to the whirlwind blown? 
He loses time who builds on time alone, 
And nothing shall be reaped from nothing sown. 

What boot the pleasures of a century's run. 
If all their sweets but end where they begun 
In that swift nothiug of an instant' s flight, 
A prize that's lost before the prize is won. 

The years gone down into the gaping tomb 
Of yesterday are dream wastes in the gloom, 

36 



To OMAR KHAYYAM 

Dim wraiths of time embraced but never held, 
Visions that stare from out an ancient room. 

Sum up their all and hoard your empty gain : 
Hope crushed by fear, joy strangled in the pain, 
Life smote by death at every baffled turn, 
Dying to live and then to die again. 

And when upon the darkened verge you stand, 
Where life's faint stream is lost in death's quick 

sand, 
What garnered treasure do the senses hold ? 
An eyeless skull within a fleshless hand. 

Who turns all things to uses of the sense 
Shall glean in sense his only recompense ; 
For time abused shall be by time avenged ; 
Life sown in death shall reap in impotence. 



You tell us that you turned from Wisdom's door, 
Sifting the heaped-up rubbish on the floor 
Of learning's vestibule, but found no key ; 
And was the portal locked — are you so sure 1 

Think you that thus the road to Wisdom lies, 
And on the rungs of knowledge men may rise 

37 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

To that pure empyrean, as small boys 
Plant little ladders to essay the skies ? 

Not all the gleaning of the labouring West, 
Nor all the knowledge of the Orient's quest 
May scale a single inch of that far height : 
Who seeketh not is he who seeketh best. 

Knowledge may reach from shining star to star, 
Enthroned on three-ringed Saturn sit afar, 
And still as distant be from Wisdom's house 
As when it beat against this lower bar. 

The door to which in vain yoirr key you plied. 
The door you found so tightly sealed, stands 

wide 
To him who bends in leal humility : 
He enters not who walks erect in pride. 

You thought to compass with your little span 

The wide abysses of creation's plan. 

And finite measure infinite design ; 

You — you would be God, who are but man. 

Believe th' Omniscient, who ordained the law, 
The end as well as the beginning saw ; 
Trust thou th' Omnipotent, who made the whole, 
O'errules it all : not His, but yours the flaw. 

38 



To OMAE KHAYYAM 

Heaven but countersigns your own decree, 
And as you sow your years, so shall they be : 
This much of fate is true, that as you plant, 
So shall you pluck the fruitage of the tree. 

The daring mind that seeks to wholly sift 
The heart of mystery, may never lift 
The veil that hides her face from prying eyes : 
From Wisdom's hand you cannot wrest her gift. 

Who would unchastely pierce her secret pale 
Shall find her panoplied in hardest mail ; 
Who seeks to violate her fane shall meet 
The entrance barred and closely drawn the veil. 

The gathered lightnings shall about him play, 
And thunderous wrath shall fill his fearful way, 
Whose lustful eye would take her face unveiled ; 
The sacrilege with blindness shall he pay. 

The question put the answer comes in kind : 
Who seeks in simple faith in faith shall find 
The answer ; but pride re-echoes pride, 
And blind the understanding of the blind. 

Who asks of Earth shall hear of Earth reply : 
Earth born of earth in earth again shall die ; 

39 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

A fugitive your little course you run, 
And there return, and there forever lie. 

Who asks of Heaven an unseen voice shall hear 
Singing like chimings of the crystal sphere 
Of interstellar spaces ringing clear: 
There but a little while, forever here ; 

A little while to school the impatient soul 
To read by faith the riddle of the scroll, 
That Wisdom writes in hieroglyphs of time ; 
There but the lesser part, and here the whole. 

For Love gazed on the Beauty of the Face 
Of His Beloved and upward welled in grace, 
As everlasting fountains pouring forth 
Abundant floods make bloom a desert place. 

Love in creation's wondrous mirror sought 
To multiply the image of His Thought, 
And pouring forth His Power upon the void, 
In Love the likeness of His Love He wrought. 

And back again as surging flames aspire 
Creation lifts to Love's eternal fire ; 
Time but the rushing of her eager flight 
Upon the outstretched pinions of desire ; 

40 



To OMAE KHAYYAM 



Death, the instant of the journey done, 

"When all the courses of the way are run, 

The door through which departs the passing 

guest, 
Who goes upon the rising of the sun. 

For Love devised the plan, and Love makes test 
Of Faith to that far end that Love knows best ; 
And this the message Love by Wisdom sends : 
In Faith abide, and leave to Love the rest. 

Divorce not Eeason from thy failing house 
To make with concubines a vain carouse, 
But take her, prudent partner of thy years, 
To cherish chastely as a faithful spouse. 

She, too, is of celestial origin, 
And knows how close to Faith she is akin, 
Faith, her elder sister, in whose eyes 
Dissolves the secret, death, the riddle, sin. 

For Eeason, modest in her household lore, 
Seeks not beyond the threshold of her door ; 
Diviner truths in Wisdom's utterance given, 
Takes from the lips of Faith, and asks no more. 

By Faith, and Faith alone in panic rout 
The misbelieving horde is driven out, 

41 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

Fate's nameless terror lifted from the soul, 
Fate, the echo of the voice of doubt. 

Forgetfulness in sense a sorry scheme 
To cheat the conscience and make seem 
The IS and IS-NOT all a phantom show. 
And time the fading shadow of a dream. 

For Reason, drugged a thousand times and more, 
A ravaged captive on the tavern floor. 
Awakes again loathing her fallen state, 
And clamours for her freedom at the door. 

Though shamed and flouted victim of thy rape, 
She does not die ; and you may not escape 
Her importuning voice, nor think to end 
The issue in the lethe of the grape. 



Come from the stifling tavern's baleful glare 
Into the sunshine and the outer air. 
With gladdened nature greeting everywhere, 
And looking up to heaven, see, how fair ! 

How pure the wide savannah's vaulted sweep. 
One sapphire flame from glowing deep to deep ; 
This crystal cup hold to thy crackled lip. 
And drinking feel the freshened pulses leap. 

42 



To OMAR KHAYYAM 



Drink, and clear the phantoms from thy brain, 
Cleanse from the sluggish blood the lecherous 

bane 
That poisoned all the wells of life and truth ; 
Drink ! Look up ! and once again be sane. 

"With chastened sense and in the cleaner mind 
Look in pure nature's eyes, and you shall find 
A secret half spelled out and half divined : 
Within the emblem truth is not confined. 

Her secret word a faint prefiguring ; 
She speaks in shadow of a higher thing, 
Like pale penumbra of the light unseen. 
The sun's veiled glory from an outer ring. 

Within the deepened shadow's darkened plot 
You sought the source of light and found it not ; 
Your eyes grew dim with searching in the dark, 
And blindness out of darkness was begot. 

The shadow is but shade of hidden light ; 
It is the sun by earth eclipsed makes night : 
Heaven is gracious to our little power. 
And her far secret tempers to our sight. 

The need of Faith from nature's secret learn ; 
Eeason from Faith and Faith from Love in turn 

43 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Draws life and light ; in One see all else rest, 
And in things seen the things unseen discern. 

And though thy years are drawing to their close, 
And youth and spring have faded with the rose, 
Faith plucks the thorn of thy regret, and lo ! 
Upon the naked stem Hope's floweret blows ; 

And all the garden blossoms, and the Yine 
Into Love's chalice pours diviner Wine : 
Faith holds the secret of the sacred sign ; 
Her eyes search deep and long, and make it 
thine. 



44 



OTHER POEMS 



LOVE AND DEATH. 

"Watcher, whose eyes are fever bright 
With peering through the dragging night, 
See you the coming of the light ? 

Long have we waited for your word. 
The revelation you have heard 
From Nature's lips, like voices stirred 

In Memnon's image, when the ray 
Of morning smites his wakening clay 
To music with the coming day. 

The message that we hope from thee, 
A new evangel, that will be 
The death of foolish mystery. 

Have you not plumbed the central deep 
Of life, and sifted all the heap 
In jealous Nature's guarded keep j 

And all her labyrinth of dread 
Traversed with Ariadne's thread, 
Unmindful of the quick or dead ? 

We wait to hear the secret thing 
You've plucked from Saturn's ruby ring, 
The stellar message that you bring 

47 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

From other worlds, communicate 
With freedom from this lower state 
Heavy with death and black with fate. 

Beneath time's leaden mantle bowed, 
With slow step creeps the anguished crowd 
Under a heaven dark with cloud ; 

A way of toil, a path of fears 
Barren with thorns and salt with tears, 
How filmy our short span of years ; 

A gossamer athwart the face 
Of upper and of nether space, 
Like smoke to vanish from its place. 

Grief in life's cup distills its gall ; 
The very sweets begin to pall, 
And Death awaits to drain it all. 

What joyous message yours to tell, 
Who stand upon the pinnacle 
Of knowledge, like a sentinel 

Upon a leaguered city's tower, 
Awaiting rescue's golden hour 
Against the foe's encircling power: 

48 



LOVE and DEATH 



See you, through shadows of the night, 
The first faint flush of dawning light 
Gleaming on armour burnished bright. 

The van of armies marching down 
To rescue of the fainting town 
And victory's long awaited crown? 

We weep, we suffer and we die ; 
Dumb is the earth and dumb the sky — 
Feed not our hopes upon a lie ! 

The race you tell us is the flower 
Of aeons building with blind power 
Up to the distant crowning hour : 

I look upon the face of Death ; 

And Sorrow asks with sobbing breath : 

What is the foolish thing he saith ? 

And stricken Love with lowly head 
Stands dumb beside the silent dead ; — 
She heedeth not what he hath said. 

What cares my Love for prophecy 
Of unborn races ; what to me 
The ghostly dream of time to-be? 

49 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

My Love but yesterday was born, 

Blossomed a rose upon life's thorn, 

And withered now, lies plucked and torn. 

"Why prate about millennial hours. 
The far result of unknown powers. 
When Death is scything 'mid the flowers? 

Can you restore a single leaf 

Once gathered in his crowded sheaf. 

Or pluck the poisoned thorn of grief? 

My love is more than love of race, 

A single love for one dear face, 

Now locked in Death's unloved embrace. 

Upon the bier in Love's purview 
Lies all the race Love ever knew ; 
There all the sweet in all the rue. 

Love ever grows from one sole root. 
And blossoms on a single shoot 
TJpburgeoning to perfect fruit. 

Within the heart's red garden blows 
The splendour of its queenly rose. 
The single blossom that it knows. 

50 



LOVE and DEATH 



Now lies my flower in Death's cold hand, 
Its petals scattered on the strand, 
And all the garden choked with sand. 

I stand before time's ribbed gate, 
And wondering ask : Can love abate, 
Is Death the final seal of fate ? 

Is Love but one sweet moment's bloom. 
An instant's flash upon the gloom, 
Then sudden ashes of the tomb 1 

Can you, who scan the secret ways 
Of hidden systems through the maze 
Of heavenly hieroglyphs ablaze 

With myriad suns, — can you not read 
Some answer in that luminous screed. 
How Love from Death's iron bond is freed? 

Or you, who search the rocky girth, 
That ribs our ancient mother earth. 
For traces of the primal birth ; — 

What answer to Love's questioning 
From her dread wisdom can you wring. 
What word to stir Hope's fluttering? 

51 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

What gain to Love the garnered store 
Of all your microscopic lore, 
The little less or little more 

Of knowledge, if it hold no key 

To that abysmal mystery, 

Which parteth now my love from me % 

Nature you say is wheeling fast 
Downward to that chaotic last. 
When all the hours shall be but past, 

And all time bound within its zone 
Upon the void in ashes blown, 
With Death sole victor on his throne. 

Love turns with blinded eye away. 
And gazing on the trestled clay. 
Scarce knoweth now what she may say ; 

Her heart benumbed with some strange fear, 
The word's hard meaning, dimly clear, 
Sounds strange upon her anguished ear. 

I take my love's cold hand and feel 
Its icy numbness upward steal 
Around my heart, and there congeal 

52 



LOVE and DEATH 



In grief's deep frost, like winter's breath 
On some lone pool upon the heath, 
"When all the ground lies white in death. 

The lips are silent whence once came 
The softened accents of my name 
In discreet praise or loving blame : 

There where I plucked the flower of speech, 
The crumpled petals ashening bleach, 
Though Love in anguish now beseech 

One little word, one faintest stir, 
Like breath upon a gossamer. 
An echo whispered to aver 

That out beyond this darkened year 
Love lives and rules a nobler sphere, 
Though Death stand sceptred tyrant here. 

Alas ! no hint, no murmured sigh 
From those pale lips to make reply, 
That Love herself is not to die ! 

Death only knows the dead are dead. 
The body sinks, the life is sped, 
And all we knew evanished. 

53 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

O hollow creed and empty boast, 

That failest when Love needs thee most, 

A shattered wreck on Death's iron coast. 

Love craves and seeks a fuller life ; 
Though all of Nature seems at strife 
With her, and all her ways are rife 

With signs of death, as broadcast leaves 
On barren earth when autumn grieves. 
Love heedeth not, but still believes 

Beyond the grosser evidence 

Of the time-stuffed and halting sense, 

She yet shall find full recompense. 

And from the ashes of her grief 
A hidden hope puts forth a leaf, 
That yet may burgeon for the sheaf, 

Which Faith shall gather in the grain. 
Sown in the furrows of her pain 
To ripen for the harvest's gain. 

And in that hope Death's stony face 
Takes something of a softening grace. 
Like light upon a barren place j 

54 



LOVE and DEATH 



For stirring in her frosted heart, 
Love feels the sudden pulses start, 
'New life in quickening throbbings dart 

Its joyous anguish through each vein ; 
And all the winter of her pain 
Weeps from her eyes like April rain. 

A hope in death ! O wondrous thing ! 
The desert's waste agreen with spring. 
Death's very rood enblossoming ! 

Look up, O trembling Love, and see 
The outstretched arms of that great tree, 
Which crowns the brow of Calvary. 

Here planted in Death's bitter root 
Upspringeth the immortal shoot 
To bear the glorious after-fruit. 

Around the blood-stained Brow entwines 
Death's barren coronal of spines, 
Plucked from a waste of withered vines ; 

Lo, bathed within that quickening flood 
Each sterile spike bursts into bud 
And reddens into lustihood ! 

55 



The DEATH of SIE LAUIfCELOT 

And looking no"W^ upon the bier, 

My love no longer drops a tear, 

For Death's vast mystery grows clear. 



66 



ODE. 

'{Read at the Centenary of Georgetown University, Feb- 
ruary 21, 1889.] 

When youth, O Alma Mater, on the threshold 

stood, 
The hot thirst of fame within the blood, 
And turned with longing eyes 
To life's giant enterprise. 
Under the gilded future's spell 
Lightly we said farewell 
To these dear scenes, and down yon narrow 

street, 
"With throbbing heart and hastening feet, 
Sought the jostling throng 
That o'er life's highway streams along : 
Lightly we went, Hope in the van, 
"While life like music ran 
Melodiously through heart and brain, 
Each step a victory, each moment gain. 
Lightly we went : but laden now 
Eeturn with deeper love blown to full flower 
By riper knowledge of the absent hour : 
And on this day of days, 
"When like a hundred stars upon thy brow 
Thy hundred years in splendour blaze. 
Lay at thy feet the tribute of our praise. 

57 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

As dew wept down on leaf and flower, when 

morn 
Grows tremulous within the east scarce born, 
Mirrors in every crystal drop the radiant sun, 
A thousand lesser lights reflecting one, 
Our loves receive thy love's desire, 
And myriad-fold return the sacred fire. 



II. 

From distant lands, where in soft splendour 

beams 
The Southern Cross through silent deeps of air, 
Making a solemn glory of the night that seems 
As though angelic choirs were chanting there ; 
From lands where winter's icy banners flare 
Upon rude blasts blown down in roaring war 
From solitudes beneath the polar star ; 
From lands where morning's earliest rays unbar 
The gates of sleep to rouse the eager throng 
"With the keen note of industry's shrill song, 
While slumbering cities into being start 
And barter roars within the busy mart ; 
From lands where boundless prairie rolls along 
In endless leagues, and towering summits leap 
To cloudless heights above Pacific's deep, 
Thy many sons assemble here 

68 



ODE for GEORGETOWN UNIVEESITY 

To greet thee in thy hundredth year 

Of sweet maternity, and lay aside, 

For this brief hour, the buckler and the spear, 

As armed knights were wont of old to bide 

The truce of God, remembering Christ had 

died : — 
From all life's walks we come in peace arrayed ; 
Where feverish Commerce plies the looms of 

trade 
With ceaseless hum, and from the myriad ways 
Of Law, whose justice-tempered segis stays 
And turns unbridled evil's reckless blade ; 
Where armed with new-found powers sage 

Galen's art 
Arrests the fatal flight of Death's dread dart ; 
Where on the stormy seas of high debate 
The Nation's wisdom guides the bark of state ; 
Where sweet Eeligion takes sublimer part 
And drawing with her threefold cord above 
Leads fallen nature up to perfect Love. 
Yet not alone thy sons that here below 
Lift the glad voice in jubilation's song, 
Salute thee, but where Heaven's starry bow 
Eounds the vast firmament with fire, a throng 
Invisible, blest spirits once among 
Thine earthly sons take up the great refrain. 
Till all the blissful heights give back the strain, 

59 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

That falls a benediction on thy head 
From blessed hands of thy beloved dead ; 
And thy triumphant sons thence looking down 
Flash on thy brow a spiritual crown, 
A diadem of light, whose splendour rays 
Immortal glory through eternal days ! 



III. 

When virgin Liberty yet stood 

Within the dawn of maidenhood, 

Upon these hills was fixed thy seat. 

The home of truth, and learning's calm retreat. 

By blue Potomac's peaceful flood. 

Scarce then had died the fuiious beat 

Of rolling drum in loud alarm 

Sounding the patriot's call to arm 

Against the tyrant foe ; 

While yet the reeking sod was warm 

With martyr blood spilt in the fearful throe 

Of battle, and the trembling earth 

Groaned in travail of a nation's birth. 

Came the man of peace, who bore 

The cross and laurel to the shore. 

Where sweet Cohonguroton's waters pour. 

And planted here the sacred tree. 

And this was he 

60 



ODE for GEORGETOWN TJNIYEESITY 

Of that same faith and race 

With him who, taking up the bloodless steel 

To make the Nation's woe or weal, 

Alone of all the signers dared to trace 

Not only his heroic name, but native place, 

And with the dauntless front of Freedom's son 

Wrote "■ Carroll of Carrollton ! " 

Rejoice in thy noble stem 

And firm foundations wrought 

When minion foes were taught 

How priceless is the gem 

Of Freedom bought 

By patriot steel in patriot hands 

Against a narrow tyrant's slavish bands ! 

Around thy cradle blew the trumpet blast 

Of victory, when Liberty at last 

Burst the chains that held her bound, 

And all the land leaped at the glorious sound, 

And from the dragon -jaws of Strife 

A Nation sprang to life, 

Strong-limbed and beautiful in power 

Through mighty wrestling in that heavy hour I 

Around thy cradle redolent 

Breathed the fresh fragrance of the spring 

Of Freedom, and its vigour blent 

With thine own blood, and sent 

Thy pulses dancing to the swing 

61 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

Of music born in prophecy 
Of all the glory yet to be ! 



IV. 

A century has rolled its solemn tide 

Along the Nation's path, and by thy walls 

The generations ebbed and died, 

Fallen in the waste of time, as falls 

Yon river to the distant sea — 

And lo ! the promise of thine infancy ! 

A stately palace rears its tower-capped height 

Upon thy hills, truth's templed shrine, 

Shedding, like a beacon light. 

Its welcome rays across the brine 

To outward speeding ships that brave 

Midmost ocean's storm-beat wave. 

Or homeward struggling barks that creep 

To haven from the warring deep. 

Beneath thy roof- tree's sheltering span, 

Science deep in Nature's various plan 

From lifeless dust to living man. 

Houses all her lore ; and Art with eyes, 

Within whose depths all beauty mirrored lies 

As in calm waters summer skies. 

Kindles at thy hearth her living flame ; 

And with thee dwells the gentle Dame, 

62 



ODE for GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Whose smile upon the exile's wandering path 
Like light soothed time-worn Dante's bitter 

wrath, 
Divine Philosophy, that strikes the trembling 

strings 
To the deep note that vibrates from the sum of 

things ! 

V. 

^'NotaUIamshalldie!" 

Was the Roman poet's cry. 

Though now no conjuring priest 

Leads the fattened beast 

To the smoking altar, and the pride 

Of Rome lies buried in her dust, 

Not all, O Bard, has died, 

And thou hast conquered in the larger trust : 

Here where learning holds her seat, 

New-born generations greet 

Thee, crowning with fresh bays 

The triumphs of those elder days. 

Nor thou alone of Greek or Roman line 

Find'st here a temple and a shrine ; 

The stately Mantuan, 

Who sang the Arms and Man, 

Ovid, whose melting lines in amorous flow 

Like torrid rivers ran, 

63 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Tlie silver-worded Cicero, 

The buskined muse of Sophocles 

And trumpet-tongued Demosthenes, 

Old Homer, whose heroic strain 

Bade gods and men contend on Troia's fatal 
plain, — 

All, all the mighty train, 

Who made the heart and brain 

Of ancient letters, and who sent, 

As fountains of the firmament, 

The impetuous crystal flood 

Of their rich speech into the blood 

Of nations yet within the womb, 

Find here a wider reign 

Than universal Eome could claim ! 

Te quickening powers ! no Stygian gloom 

Can quench the vital flame 

That breathes its glory round the classic name t 

Not dead, but living voices of the past, 

Not dead and to be cast 

Like blank annals of barbarian kings 

Into the void of forgotten things, 

But living souls with power to reach 

The human heart in human speech 

And bind the generations each to each, 

Leaping the centuries and giving breath 

To ancient forms snatched back from empty- 
death, 

64 



ODE for GBORGETOWX UKIVEESITT 

Till man in that large sympathy of mind 

Begot by wide communion with his kind, 

Across the age's broadening span 

Hesponsive greets his fellow-man ! 

Kot death, but life prevails, and though men's 

lives 
Drop off the stem of time like ripened fruit, 
Death reaps not all, the seed survives 
To strike in other soil the living root ; 
So generations gathering up the past. 
Each reaps a widening profit from the last. 
And from the seed by others sown 
Wears the flower of wisdom as its own. 



VI. 

Splendour of poet's song, the living light 

Of letters across the night 

Of ages fled. Science begirt with power 

To build a universe from every flower 

That blows, and Wisdom' s glowing height, 

Whence the eagle mind may gaze 

Into the sun of truth's full blaze. 

Are not all the glories of thy house ; 

These are thine by that high right 

Which Nature's self allows 

To those who consecrate their days 

65 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

To Learning's thorn-strewn ways : 

A light of still more constant glow, 

A flame sprung from a purer fire 

Than aught of human can inspire, 

Sheds its clear radiance on thy brow ; 

A glory and a light that first 

Eose from Manresa's cave, and burst 

In fiery splendour on a wondering world. 

When meek Loyola's hand unfurled 

His holy standard blazoned with the line, 

''The glory be not ours, O Lord, but thine ! " 

O happy issue of Pamplona's war, 

When sank a warrior's earthly star, 

Not quenched, but with rekindled beam to 

rise 
And shed celestial fires from other skies ! 
Where Error rears its crested pride 
Against the spotless bride 
Of Truth, Loyola's flashing blade descends 
Upon the mailed casque, and rends 
The stubborn visor, laying bare 
The serpent face that lurked in hiding there ; 
With steady front against the swarming foe 
Manresa's knight rains down the deadly blow. 
As on the bloody fleld of Tours, Martel 
With thundering mace smote down the infidel ! 
No carnal weapon wields he in the fight, 

66 



ODE for GEOEGETOWN UNIVEESITY 

For his a spiritual sword of light, 

Forged in the glowing smithies of the soul, 

By Love attempered and by Truth made 

whole ; 
No carnage reddens his victorious way, 
He combats to give life and not to slay, 
And like the hero fabled to our youth. 
He smites giant Error to free the princess 

Truth. 
Still other conquests wait the black-robed 

knight, 
In other fields to wage the sacred fight : 
See Xavier come, a burning brand 
Of love to distant India's sun-scorched strand, 
And as a flame consumed by its own fire 
His wasted frame in ardent love expire : 
Beneath our skies behold Loyola's band, 
"When pagan night yet palled the dismal land, 
With martyr toil the savage waste explore 
From distant Maine to far Pacific's shore, 
Christ in the heart and crucifix in hand : 
No terrors daunt, no lawless wild appals 
Where love of souls the saintly hero calls. 
But onward through the trackless waste before, 
His fearless stejjs first tread the virgin sod. 
And consecrate a new-found world to God ! 



67 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

VII. 

These, O Alma Mater, are thy bays, 

Thy coronal of praise, 

Wherewith thy hundred years are crowned ; 

These the morning stars that rise 

To fill with golden light the skies 

That circle thy first cycle round ; 

These the immortal fires that know 

No setting in heaven's wide expanse, 

But kindle with an ever brighter glow 

As years in crystal floods advance : 

"We who stand upon the shore, 

And watch the impetuous flow 

Of time's river onward pour 

Into the future's formless sea, 

Dimly dream the glory yet to be ; 

As in the gateways of the morn, 

When the waning stars are shorn 

Of their soft splendours, day is born. 

And the shimmering east grows white 

With the upward creeping light 

Against the westward flying night. 

We divine the glory still concealed 

By the beauty half revealed. 

Thy hundred years upon thy cheek 

Glowing with perennial truth, 

68 



ODE for GEORGETOWN UNIYEESITY 

;Sit like the first flush of youth ; 

Nor envious Time may wreak 

His wrinkled vengeance on thy brow, 

And his harsh furrows plough 

To mark the rugged path 

Of his relentless wrath. 

And when our days have measured out their 

span 
To the last limit of the thread, 
And we join Death's wan caravan 
To the shoreless regions of the dead, 
His dread shade shall have no power 
To blight the blossom of the flower 
That wreathes thy head ; 
But as the generations pass 
Like phantoms in Time's darkened glass, 
And ages in the ever- widening void go down. 
From their dust shall spring fresh bays to weave 

thy crown ! 



69 



AMARANTHUS. 



Sweet quiet of death, made quieter by the sound 

Of murmurous leaves above these quiet graves 

Far from the angry city's fretful noise 

Of loud mortality forgetting death. 

Here let me rest and soothe the unquiet heart 

"With myrrh of meditation, where they sleep, 

Who sleep in patient death. How still they 

sleep. 
Arched with the giant limbs of sober oaks 
Fretting the liquid roof of heaven's round 
With tremulous tracery of trembling leaves just 

stirred 
By reverent winds ! Smooth slopes the silken 

sward 
Soft o'er the silent host, like hope's green mantle 
In promise of the miracle to come. 
When at the great archangel's jubilant note 
The battlements of death shall crumble shaken 

down. 
As those proud turrets tottering tumbled flat 
Before the blasts of marching Israel. 
Sweet comfort of the mourning soul, that death 
Holds not all life within its hoary palm, 
Nor hollow eyes of sightless mockery 

70 



AMAEANTHUS 



The final image of the days that looked 
Upon a living world through lucent windows, 
And saw life smile again through other eyes 
That love enkindled into purer light, 
The dawning promise of a deathless day. 

II. 

Here greatness finds its kindred clod, and fame 
A common clay mingling with lowlier names 
Levelled by blasts of death to nothingness ; 
Here the vain lips of praise find voiceless 

echoes 
In hollow chambers sounding silence back, 
The phantom cries of images of dust ; 
And though the shouting universe should roll 
The long reverberations of its voice 
Through all the shaking avenues of time. 
And the wide spaces of the firmament 
Tremble with all their stars to that loud cry, 
Death makes no answer from his dusty sleep. 

How quiet they rest, unheedful of the fret 
Of time, the fiery fuming of the day, 
The feverish fancy of the restless night 
Eager for morn, and morn pursuing eve 
In hope expectant of the happier hour 
That never lights except to wing away 

71 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Again ; — liow quiet their changeless sleep, and 

free 
From time's illusive speed outstripping time 
As one that runs to overtake his shadow. 

Here life lays down its fardel with a smile, 
Disrobes the chafing garments that it wore 
Through all the noisy masquerade, and sleeps 
Dreamless that sleep as deep as silence is, 
And everlasting as the voiceless hilk 
That time has builded to the end of time. 
Sweet music to the ear of meditation, 
The mute melodious voice of sleep murmuring 
Lethean solace to the harried soul, 
As plash of waters to the famished ear 
Of one athirst midst white Sahara's sands : 
Sweet sleep that kisses out the wrinkled cares, 
And breathes the roses' crumpled petals smooth, 
Thy cool white hand upon my forehead lay, 
As does a mother on her child's flushed brow, 
Till Ij too, rest in dreamless vacancy. 



III. 

And wouldst thou be content, O soul, to lie 

In that deep emptiness, the wide abyss 

Of death, grim depth unsoundable and void, 

72 



AMARANTHUS 



"Where time embouches, and mortality, 
Like some swift river in the salt sea's waste, 
Pours all the gathered fulness of its course — 
Content to lie and know not, lost to use 
Of all the spirit's powers, and swayed 
A weed along the slowly creeping wave 
Of Lethe undulating heavily ? 

To rest were blessed, but to stagnate, woe : 
The wearied soul craves life not death, new life, 
The glad refreshment of the wasted powers 
To rise again in recreated bloom. 
As lift the shrivelled stalks in long parched fields 
Under the moistening kisses of the rain. 
Abundant gladness from benignant clouds. 

But when I speak to N'ature of this hope, 
Heedless her ear and dumb her stony lips, 
Like that huge image in Egyptian sands 
With lidless eye in leaden speechlessness 
Staring the crowding centuries hastening by, 
As time were nothing and death the all of life : 
Nor all the framework of this universal dust 
Puts forth one little blossom of the hope 
Of that large other life beyond death's touch ; 
From dust to dust again the barren cry 
Sobbing through all the empty wastes of time, 

73 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

"WTiile saddened Nature moans through all her 

days 
As life pours back its bloom to nothingness. 

Not there the answer, not there the golden gleam 
Of promise kindling to the dawn of hope 
Ushering the fulness of the day the soul 
Awaits ; but turning to the east I watch 
"With Pilate's soldiers for the coming light. 



IV. 

About steep Sion's walls silence and sleep, 
Twin sentinels, keep jghostly watch and tell 
The sliding hours through all the heavy night, 
While Death makes lament on the icy hills. 
And mourning bends his hooded head, and 

moans 
Presaging vanquishment, the mighty lord 
Of earth and man, since closed the clanging 

gates 
On guilty Adam and his weeping spouse. 

Now all the heavens stoop unto the west. 
Tremble the expectant stars with paling fires, 
And from the awakening east the soughing 

winds 
Like distant melodies come faintly up 

74 



AMAEANTHUS 



The vaulted darkness of the wasting night, 
And through the half- drawn portals of the dawn 
Voices of jubilation seem to sound 
As from a shouting multitude far off. 



Lo ! Death lies prostrate in his kindred dust, 
And Pilate's soldiers by a vacant tomb ! 
And Nature sings, for day is here, and bursts 
Her melody from blossomed branch and floods 
The enamelled verdure of the radiant field, 
Pouring its amorous gladness on the air 
In all the thousand glories of its flowers ! 
And shines the city in the golden flood 
Of morning, and golden all the encircling hills ; 
And on Golgotha's brow the naked Cross 
Glows golden with the light of new-born day. 

For he hath risen, Lord and King of Death ! 
For he hath risen. Lord and King of Life ! 
Eejoice, my soul, and fear not Death, who died 
That day and fell before my Lord and King 
Forever ; rejoice, and fear not ; Death is dead, 
And everlasting Life, eternal rose. 
Unfolds immortal petals blown by Love 
To perfect fulness in perpetual light ! 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 
VI. 

In him they sleep, who rest so quietly here, 

In him to rise who sleep in patience here, 

Far from the angry city's fretful noise 

Of loud mortality forgetting death : 

They sleep in his great peace, the halcyon calm 

Of that deep peace the world can never give. 

Blessed their sleep in him, who slept as they 

To rise again, as they in him shall rise 

To sleep no more : here let me sleep in him, 

And slipping off the weeds of time rise up 

Eobed by his hand in immortality. 



YOUTH. 

Out of the spacious east of life 

Streams the clear dawn of youth's fair days, 

The matin song and gracious ways 

Of the sweet prime, whose memory plays 

Across the soul's long gaze 

Like far off boreal splendours rife 

"With aureoles in northern skies, 

Where the white wold lies 

Illimitable to heaven's myriad eyes 

In the waste night's immensities. 

76 



YOUTH 

Out of those auroral hours, 

Like perfume of far flowers 

Borne by the flagging breeze 

O'er intervening leas 

Of barrenness, that fragrant prime 

Comes borne sweet through wastes of time 

Across wide plunging seas 

From morn's Hesperides ; 

Ere youth with innocence sublime 

Had left the golden clime 

Of his fair matin, keen to sail 

His slender shallop to the leaping gale. 

Fair through the after years, 

Across wide chasms swollen with storm 

And dimmed with mists of tears, 

Gleams the soft radiance of the form 

That youth had builded fair 

Out of the impalpable air 

Of serenest hope. 

Before life learned to grope 

Amid the sombre bosks of melancholic care. 

Whiter than the mountained snow. 

Brighter than the crystal glow 

Of virgin sunlight yet unkist 

By grosser air to amethyst. 

That lambent radiance sent 

77 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Its paradisial rays through all life's firmament : 

Earth felt its lucent heat 

Flood her central seat, 

And her breast replete 

With its soft warmth grew sweet 

With fragrance of the bud 

Eeddening to flower upon her blood ; 

While from the glowing sphere 

Of the overhanging year 

Meting with variant sisterhood 

Of changeful moons the moving season's mood, 

Eolled virgin hymnals all unheard, 

Save by youth's spirit stirred 

To catch the diviner word 

Angelically murmured ; 

For the heart of youth alone 

May catch the ethereal tone 

Of heaven's unseen zone, 

Youth that looks with eyes 

Seeing only paradise 

In earth's wide visibilities. 

Nor yet has learned the curse 

That locks in death the glittering universe. 

Then were all things true, 
Time all sweets, nor any rue 
Within Life's spacious garden grew ; 

78 



YOUTH 

There youth elate 

Held royal state, 

The smiling monarch of obedient fate ; 

While throned in every eye 

Honour beamed resplendent sanctity ; 

And there Eve's gracious power, 

The garden's golden dower, 

As the virgin moon, 

Night's chaste plenilune. 

Lifts the vast sea's heaving flood. 

Drew all life's tides to noble womanhood, 

For all was fair and all was good. 

Eeign then, Youth's Memory j 

Let me your captive be, 

And reap felicity 

In the far distant gleam 

Of that pure matin dream 

Before the hour of ruth, 

When all was sooth 

In one harmonious round 

Of diapasoned sound 

In the full orbit of unsullied youth. 

JFor now, alas ! is lost the gift 

Of paradise, and leap the swift 

Eaucous years headlong 

Tumbled and broke among 

79 



The DEATH of SIE LAITNCBLOT 

The splintering rocks, 
Where time's river shocks 
Against the bitter sea 
Of eternity. 

I would return to thee. 

Season of innocence 

And that fresh joy, whence 

Sounded clear the sweet accord 

Of life's primeval word, 

Deep music in far places stirred, 

When heavenly finger swept the trembling chords 

For it is this 

That makes the bliss 

Of youth, and renders fair, 

To the wide eyes of innocence, 

All the ambient air 

Of dawn in that intense 

Clear light, 

Burning a rose white 

In the eternal morn beyond eclipse of night. 

And, breaking through 

The darkened circle of our blue. 

Flashes in the eyes 

Of youth with tires of paradise ; 

This the secret power 

That clothes all earth with flower 

80 



ASPIEATION 



Of beauty seen 
Only in the sheen 
Of that deep vision 
Of the pure elysian, 
Caught by the white soul of youth, 
The unflecked mirror of the sun of truth, 
Caught and given forth again 
Into the blinded eyes of men, 
Beauty's own celestial ray 
Blotting out the light of common day, 
And showering storms of glory o'er the beaten 
way. 



ASPIRATION. 

I can strike the minor chord and sing ; — 

Is the major chord denied ? 
I would sing with the sun, and chime with the 
moon 

As it sways the heaving tide. 

I would ride upon the neck of the blast 

Grasping the mane of the rack, 
When the snorting thunder plashes his hoof 

In the lightning's ragged track. 

81 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Or where the battle thunders its bruit, 

There let my spirit pant, 
When death and victory mingle their note 

In one triumphal chant. 

I would mount to the topmost peak and ken 

With an eagle's sight afar, 
Swoop to the depths and up again 

Across the path of a star. 

Where myriad suns commingling blaze 
In the marge of farthermost space. 

And system in system clangorous rolls 
Athwart the abyss's face, 

Let my soul drink in the rushing song 

Of a thousand worlds in one, 
The music of time forever dying 

And time forever begun. 

On the wings of morning let me rise. 

On the plumes of evening fall. 
With the orient clang at the gates of sleep, 

With evening unfold her pall ; 

And with the course of the chariot sun, 
Let me follow the life of man, 

82 



POET and BIED 



With the eye of heaven looking upon 
The great and the little plan. 

For I would sing as an Angel might chant 

Of all that he sees below, 
When he gazes down on the whirling globe 

With its human ebb and flow ; 

And, summing up in one great chord, 
Bring the song to a perfect close. 

As Dante's diapason blooms 
In heaven's eternal rose. 



POET AND BIRD. 

To sing a fleeting song and die ! 

What merit in a vagrant note 
That flutters through an empty sky 

On idly pulsing wings afloat ! 

Within the ocean wastes of air 
No ear to catch its slender tone, 

Along the wide savannah's glare 
Into the seas of silence blown. 

Or if some silvern drops of sound 

From its slight stream should patter down 

83 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

Upon the vast earth's glittering round, 
In greening field or dusty town, 

Who there would heed its fleeting dew 
Drunk by the thirsty soil before 

The sun has climbed the morning blue, 
And life crept out from sleep's dim door? 

Yet song is native to the bird, 

That trills in heaven a buoyant stave, 

Pouring his melody unheard 

Upon the trembling ether's wave. 

And native, too, the poet's note, 

Though none to hear the distant song 

Throbbing in regions far remote 

From earth and its unheedful throng. 

For Beauty has a secret grace 

Bestowed in solitude alone ; 
Both bird and poet haunt the place 

About the purlieus of her zone ; 

And, winging through the higher ways 
Close to the levels of her throne, 

There catch some fragments of her lays, 
And sing the music as their own. 

84 



IN CIRCE'S DEN. 

Dullard and sot crammed full 
Of the meat of the flesh, 

Gross bulk ensnared and held 
In the sense's mesh ; 

Fat chops repletely fed 

On the offal heap, 
Munching a-hungered again 

In the garbage sweep ; 

Epicure, bellied big, 

Homed in the sty ; 
Snout stale with its ancient swill, 

Bleared, piggish eye ; — 

Push and grunt at the trough 

In Circe's pen, 
Glut and roll and wallow 

And glut again ! 

The poet's scorn upon you 

Brutes of the sty ; 
Slaves of the trough and the swill, 

"Wallow and die ! 

85 



The DEATH of SIE LAUXCELOT 

Away ! where nature is clean, 
And breath of the breeze 

Draws deep with light in the east 
And morn in the trees ! 

Flashes the gossamer thread 

Pearled with the dawn ; 
Silver soft shafts of Apollo 

Gleam on the lawn. 

Close night's golden eyes, 

Pale wanes the moon ; 
Twinkle the feet of the day 

In her white shoon. 

"Wakens a tumult of song 

In forest green glades ; 
Silent off steals the dark 

Through soft melting shades. 

Faint comes a wind soughing 

Stirring the leaves ; 
Chequered shadow and sunshine 

On the sward weaves. 

Soul-stirring breath of the heaven, 
Rich wind of the earth, 

86 



On the DEATH of ALFEED TENNYSON 

Waking the heart to thy gladness 
And nature to mirth ; 

These be the poet's dear portion 

Afar from the den, 
Where Circe sits watching her sty 

And its swine, that are men. 



ON THE DEATH OF ALFRED 

TENNYSON. 

Who took the laurel from the brow 
Of him, who uttered nothing base, 
And ever bore it in the vase 

Of purity, O Master, thou, 

Of virgin song, when round thee beat 

The lustful rhythm of a time, 

That welds false passion with false rhyme 
Like some fierce Titan in the heat 

Of unregenerate desire ; 

Thou, turning to sublimer spheres, 
Made measure of the changing years 

With chastest song, and, all afire 

87 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

"With vestal passion, fed the flame 

Of poesy with holy oils ; 

And kept unsullied from the toils 
Of grosser things the hallowed name 

Of poet. "We who love thy fame 
And follow still thy luminous star, 
A beacon light beyond the bar, 

Pray now for thee the sweet acclaim 

Of Avalon saluting there 

Tumultuously the pure of heart, 
"Whose song e'er scorned the baser part, 

And kept the lily's whiteness fair. 



ARISE, AMERICA! 

[On the occasion of President Cleveland's 
Venezuelan Message.] 

Arise, America ! 
Justice to freedom calls. 
And freedom's mighty shout 
Thunders answering out. 
Shaking the brazen walls 
Of a despot's quaking halls. 

88 



AEISE, AMEEICA! 



Arise, America ! 
Hark ! Valour's quickening tread, 
Through all your golden plain 
Sounding from main to main, 
Stirs e'en the glorious dead, 
Who once for country bled. 

Arise, America ! 
EoUs back time's misty night, 
And lo ! the heroic band 
Wrests from fell England's hand 
Freedom's sacred right, 
Crowned on glory's height ! 

Arise, America ! 
Ours the glorious meed 
Of freedom, heaven -sprung, 
God's youngest gifts among, 
Won only by the deed 
Of heroes when they bleed. 

Arise, America ! 
Ours this sacred weal 
To guard and ever hold 
Against or arms or gold ; 
Swear it, as we kneel. 
By the patriot's virgin steel ! 

89 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Arise, America ! 
Better the desperate clash 
Of war and goriest fight 
Than justice cowered by might ; 
Better than despot's lash 
Death by the foeman's gash ! 

Arise, America ! 
Twice England felt our worth, 
Twice we smote her sore 
And hurled her from our shore ; 
Twice shrunk her pride's vast girth, 
Till freedom strode the earth ! 

Arise, America ! 
Our valour still is true. 
Our patriot blood still flows 
Where freedom's banner blows ; 
Nor vain shall justice sue 
Our arms to justice due. 

Arise, arise ! 
Ye sons of freedom, shout 
Till the shaking heavens reply ! 
Flash the keen steel on high, 
Swift gleaming roundabout 
The foeman's panic rout ! 

90 



The EAISING of the FLAG 

Arise ! Arise ! 
Sacred the cause, and just, 
God, our mightiest might, 
Battling for the right. 
Holding Freedom's sacred trust 
Against a world's mad lust ! 



THE RAISING OF THE FLAG. 

Lift up the banner of our love 
To the kiss of the winds above. 
The banner of the world's fair hope, 
Set with stars from the azure cope. 
When liberty was young. 
And yet unsung 
Clarioned her voice among 
The trodden peoples, and stirred 
The pulses with her word. 
Till the swift flood red 
From the quick heart sped. 
Flushing valoui*'s cheek with flame 
At sounding of her august sacred name ! 

Lift up the banner of the stars, 
The standard of the double bars, 

91 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Eed with tlie holy tide 

Of heroes' blood, who died 

At the feet of liberty, 

Shouting her battle-cry 

Triumphantly, 

As they fell like sickled corn 

In that first resplendent morn 

Of freedom, glad to die 

In the dawn of her clear eye ! 

Lift up the flag of starry blue 
Caught from the crystal hue 
Of central heaven's glowing dome. 
Where the great winds largely roam 
In unrestrained liberty ; 
Caught from the cerulean sea 
Of midmost ocean tossing free, 
Flecked with the racing foam 
Of rushing waters, as they leap 
Unbridled from the laughing deep 
In the gulfs of liberty ! 

Lift up the banner red 
With the blood of heroes shed 
In victory ! 

Lift up the banner blue 
As heaven, and as true 

92 



The EAISING of the FLAG 

In constancy ! 

Lift up the banner white 

As sea foam in the light 

Of liberty ; 

The banner of the triple hue, 

The banner of the red and white and blue, 

Bright ensign of the free ! 

Lift up the banner of the days to come. 
When cease the trumpet and the rolling drum ; 
When peace in the nest of love 
Unfolds the wings of the dove, 
Brooding o'er the days to-be. 
Peace born of freedom's might. 
Peace sprung from the power of right, 
The peace of liberty ! 

Lift up the flag of high emprise 

To greet the gladdened eyes 

Of peoples far and near, 

The glorious harbinger 

Of earth's wide liberties. 

Streaming pure and clear 

In freedom's lofty atmosphere ! 

Lift up our hearts to Him who made to shine 
In heaven's arch the glorious sign 

93 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Of mercy's heavenly birth. 
To all the peoples of the earth, 
The pledge of peace divine ! 
And let our glorious banner, too, 
The banner of the rainbow's hue, 
In heaven' s wide expanse unfurled, 
Be for a promise to the world 
Of peace to all mankind ; 
Banner of peace and light. 
Banner of red and blue and white, 
Eed as the crimson blood 
Of Christ's wide brotherhood, 
Blue with the unchanging hope 
Of heaven's steadfast cope. 
White as the radiant sun 
The whole earth shining on ! 



THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM. 

O cruel manger, how bleak, how bleak ! 

For the limbs of the babe, my God ; 
Soft little limbs on the cold, cold straw ; 

Weep, O eyes, for thy God ! 

Bitter ye winds in the frosty night 
Upon the Babe, my God, 

94 



The BABE of BETHLEHEM 

Piercing tlie torn and broken thatch j 
Lament, O heart, for thy God ! 

Bare is the floor, how bare, how bare 
For the Babe's sweet mother, my God ; 

Only a stable for mother and Babe ; 
How cruel thy world, my God ! 

Cast out, cast out, by his brother men, 

Unknown the Babe, my God j 
The OS and the ass alone are there ; 

Soften, O heart, for thy God ! 

Dear little arms and sweet little hands, 
That stretch for thy mother, my God j 

Soft baby eyes to the mother's eyes ; 
Melt, O heart, for thy God ! 

Waxen touches on mother's heart, 

Fingers of the Babe, my God ; 
Dear baby lips to her virgin breast, 

The virgin mother of God. 

The shepherds have come from the hills to adore 
The Babe in the manger, my God ; 

Mary and Joseph welcome them there ; 
Worship, O soul, thy God ! 

95 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

But I alone may not come near 
The Babe in the manger, my God ; 

Weep for thy sins, O heart, and plead 
With Mary, the mother of God. 

May I not come, oh, just to the door. 

To see the Babe, my God ; 
There will I stop, and kneel and adore, 

And weep for my sins, O God ! 

But Mary smiles, and rising up, 

In her arms the Babe, my God, 
She comes to the door and bends her down, 

With the Babe in her arms, my God ! 

Her sinless arms in my sinful arms 
Places the Babe, my God ; 
**He has come to take thy sins away ; " 
Break, O heart, for thy God ! 



96 



LOVE SOLE. 

I know the shibboletli that slips 
So oilily from unctuous lips, 
Philanthropist to finger-tips ; 

The modern Pharisaic brood 
With babble of the general good, 
And shallow cant of brotherhood. 

Theirs but the mock of love, the weed 
And bramble of degenerate seed, 
The face, but not the heart, indeed. 

This truth is truth since man begun : 
True love begins and ends in one ; 
The love of all is love of none. 

'Tis false we love the general man ; 
True love is mightier, vaster, than 
The fetich of the common Pan. 

Centred within the single soul. 
Love finds the cycle of its whole. 
The first swift impulse and the goal. 

97 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

Not in the blurred and vulgar mind 
Does love its hallowed image find, 
But in itself divinest kind. 

And rooted thus in single good, 
Scatters the blessings of its mood, 
And blossoms unto brotherhood. 



THE BURDEN. 

Let night shut out the cares of day, 
Blot out the sense of wrong, 

And in the bath of slumber steep 
The soul, till it grow strong. 

Then, waking with the coming light, 

Arise, and go thy way, 
Leaving the burden to the night 

That bent thee yesterday. 



98 



HOW POETS PLAY. 

How do poets play ? 
Of their own souls 
Making psalteries, 
Whose music rolls 
Toned to the vibrant ray 
Of interstellar harmonies ; 
There lightnings involute 
With lightnings, shoot 

Athwart the flagrant spaces of the day, 
Till sound ensheathed in sound, 
Music in music drowned. 
Flooding the still depths round, 

Swoon in fainting silences away. 



THE LOWER BOUGH. 

Eest on the lower bough, 
Whose wings are frail. 

Nor seek the riotous tops 
Lashed by the gale. 

Let not ambition tempt 
To flutter where 

L.cfC. 99 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

The eagle's iron wing 
May scarcely dare. 

All native to the sward 

And leafy shade, 
Thy slender treble fills 

The quiet glade. 

But in the upper gale 

Thy little sound 
Were like a rose-leaf reft 

And blown around, 

Or in the solitude 

Of height on height, 
The flickering of a spark 

Within the light. 



100 



HEAVEN. 



MOTHER. 



A little child, a little child 

With childish prattle at my knee : 

I did not know how near was Heaven, 
And now how far is Heaven from me. 



FATHER. 



Nay, nearer now, since Heaven holds, 
As hostage of our plighted love, 

The child that Heaven gave, and took 
To show true Heaven is all above. 



CARMEN NUPTIALE. 

happiest kalend in the count of time ! 

1 lift my voice to sing thy golden hour : 
Of all thy circling sisters, from the prime 
Of Eve' s chaste nuptials in the sacred bower 
Of paradisial innocence and love. 

Than none less gracious shalt thou prove. 
Thy brooding moment holds all future days, 
As in the tender egg of nesting dove 

101 



The DEATH of SIR LAUNCELOT 

Lies tlie sweet liope to- come, warmed by soft 
rays 

From love's own lieart, and only pleased to 
bring 

Life to its joyous spring. 

Mark this most blest amongst all time's com- 
peers ; 

Of past pursuit the now accomplished goal, 

The happier dawn that lights the wakened soul 

To vaster regions in the round of years, 

To larger hopes and dearer fears ; 

Til] love outgrows all measured marge, and leaps 

The rim of time to God's eternal deeps ! 



102 



SONNETS 



SONNETS 



EETKOGKESSION". 

[The United States declared war against Spain for the 
liberation of Cuba.] 

"We gave a solemn pledge, and called on Heaven 

To hear ; our arms, we swore, were Freedom's 
own. 

To Freedom consecrate, and her alone ; 
Our valour sprung from her chaste bosom, given 
To Freedom's cause forever ; and her levin 

We forged upon the footsteps of her throne ; 

Her sword unclasping from her zone, 
She placed within our hands, and blessed us 
shriven. 

O solemn mockery of her holy trust ! 

Our troth forgot and slaked our noble zeal, 

Our brittle honour shattered in the dust ! 

A riotous people drunk with conquest's lust, 
In bacchanalian rout we onward reel, 
And 'gainst her turn her own ensanguined 
steel ! 



105 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 



THE POET'S FA^iTE. 

Stop ! Come not anear the poet's fane 
Without the poet's robe of love ; the spot 

Is sacred, red with sanctities of pain, 

That blossom flower- wise in a garden plot 

Fed by the tilth of grief and weeping rain ; 

Poor flowerets dashed with sorrow's purple stain, 
Out of love's youthful shyness first begot, — 
Save with compassion's hand touch thou them 
not. 

But, if the mellowing grace of sympathy 
Wells as a kindred fountain in thy heart. 
Pour out the generous flood, — stand not apart 
Enstranged ; shower down thy golden charity. 
And, fed by that great largess, thou shalt see 
These drooping flowerets bloom in majesty. 



106 



SON-NETS 



THE BABE. 



How strange when thou wert not, a life to-be ! 
Nor ready fancy playing fondly drew 
Thine unguessed lineaments in shape or hue, 

Wrapt in the womb of possibility, 

"Where silence brooded o'er the darkened sea 
Eolling a soundless tide ; nor hint nor clew 
Was murmured from that voiceless deep, nor 
blew 

A message on the winds to tell of thee. 

We know not whence, but like a sudden light 
From darkness flashing out, and all aglow 
With radiant light, thy being burst to flame ! 
But now the unseen held thee from our sight, 
An unborn mystery, undreamed — and lo ! 
Love called, and thou didst answer to thy 
name. 

II. 

Sweet mystery, thou living soul with eyes 
To gaze upon the shifting scene that plays 

107 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

In ceaseless change about life's narrow ways, 
And wondering gather 'neath the circling skies 
The fleeting, variant image as it flies, 

While time with nimble shuttle weaves the 
days 

Around thine unconcerned head, and lays 
His glittering thread athwart thy destinies ; 

Echoes of life around thee come and go 
Unheeded, like the muffled sounds that fill 
The lonely watches of the central deep. 
When midnight bends aloft her sable bow. 
And feathered silence falls around, as still 
As utter peace and quiet as dreamless sleep. 



108 



SONNETS 



THE SONNET. 

"Within the sonnet's glittering limit lies 

The diamond's royal fire, Wordsworthian verse 
Wedding high thought with noble music, terse 

With wisdom ; there the opalescent dyes 

Of love-light from a Petrarch's brimming eyes ; 
The luted plaint that chastened Dante's curse ; 
Miltonic echoes organ pealed, the nurse 

Of solemn sounds brought down from midnight 
skies. 

It measures with the royal tread of kings, 
And treasures wealth too precious to be hid 
In wanton rhymes and idly footed lines ; 
Or upward soaring, as an eagle, wings 
Its way to empyrean calms amid 

The tuneful silence of the topmost Apen- 
nines. 



II. 

They say the sonnet is a narrow pale, 
A little garden straitly hedged around 
Where only slender flowerets may be found, 

109 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

But no brave blossom lusty with the gale 
And the untempered sun ; and in its bound 
Pale poets gently pipe in plaintive sound 

The sifted sweetness of love's distant bale 
On reeds all murmurous of the underground. 

Yet trumpet tongues have found swift utterance 
here 
And freedom loosed her fiery- hearted levin, 
And earth has trembled with the solemn fear 
Of harmonies breathed from the stooping 

heaven : 
E'en in this slender compass closely pent 
A master's voice may shake the firmament ! 



110 



SONNETS 



ANARCHY. 

[The Empress of Austria was assassinated by an anar- 
chist in Geneva in August, 1898.] 

Eed hand, black heart, beast with the dragon's 

face ; 

Thou hundred-headed horror breathing death 

And dole across the fair world's rounded space, 

Blurring the wholesome sun with tainted 

breath, 
Back to thine ancient slime, blind whelp of 
wrath ! 
Amid the dragons of the prime, thy place ; 

Thy law the lust of tooth and claw ; thy path, 
Like Lucifer's, to gaping Hell's embrace ! 

Black heart, red hand smiting her queenly 
breast. 
Thinking in rabid rage to rend the law, 
Blind as the snarling tiger in his quest 

For prey ; from her spent blood shall Justice 
draw 
Swift strength to hurl upon thy viper's nest 
The outraged nations' deep anathema ! 

Ill 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 



VANITAS YANITATUM. 

Is life as empty as the poet sings 

In lamentation o'er the shattered days 
That strew the banks of time, and mark our 
ways 

With the sad wreckage of the hopeful springs, 

That promised golden havens, when the wings 
Of joy expectant flashed empurpled rays 
Athwart the far horizon's golden haze, 

And lured us on with her soft glamourings ? 

Alack ! the mask upon the countenance 

Of time to cheat us with the teasing thought, 

That he abides eternally, perchance ; 

Till we like eager searchers, who have sought 

A fleeing form through all the giddy dance, 
Find 'neath the mask the eyes of Death in- 
wrought. 

II. 

Can it be true, that time is but a breath 
Of nothingness, a shadowy film that lies 
Upon the senses steeped in carnal dyes, 

112 



SONNETS 



That bleach before the stinging touch of death ; 

A moving vanity with faded wreath ; 
An empty image mirrored in the eyes, 
As shadows in salt pools from shallow skies, — 

Life a pale ghost, the grave an empty sheath ? 

O bitterness to sour the unfound sweet. 

The sweet pursued with ever- quickening chase, 

And still pursued, yet ever found more fleet ; — 
Hasten, O Soul, hasten thy hurrying pace ! — 
Alas ! thou' rt still a laggard in the race, 

Though shod with lightnings were thy rushing 
feet! 



113 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 



LOVE'S FKUIT. 

There was a little life that beat from mine, 
A little hand that clasped my hand, and eyes 
That looked in mine with all love's mysteries, 

So deep, so true, so tender, so divine. 

That I could read therein the lucent sign 

Of heavenly things that speak not human wise, 
But find their utterance in the distant skies 

Where far withdrawn God's holiest secrets shine. 

And though my heart is bruised, and all my 
soul 
Quivers with pain, in patience I abide 
The grief that shadows all the world with 
gloom : 
I know that loss and grief are not the whole 
Of life, that Love is not Death's barren bride. 
But bears immortal fruit within her womb. 



114 



SONNETS 



MARCH. 

Uproarious month ! Spent winter' s dying wrath, 
Howling across the waste and charging down 
Upon the groaning woodland's shrieking town, 

Lashing the helpless boughs, and in thy path 

Scattering thy spoils in hapless aftermath; — 
Blow, blow thy spirit's turbulence, and frown 
Thy darkest from the sullen skies, and crown 

Thy war with all the rage that winter hath! 

Thou stormy image of the turbid soul 
Swollen with winter of its barren pride, 
The monstrous lion of anger roaring there 
With raucous breath and rending all the air 
With fearful bellowings, that rush and roll 
Mad whirlwinds heaping ruin far and wide ! 



115 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 



APRIL. 

Half fearful, half in joy, witli tearful eyes 
Thou comest little maiden, tender bride, 
Timid but loving by the bridegroom's side, 

Thy feet reluctant to the path that lies 

Before thee under half enclouded skies ; 
Yet in thy heart emboldened to confide 
In him who leads thee as thy constant guide 

To the rich blooms of love's full paradise. 

Cast out all maiden fear, thou little wife ; 
The way before thee broadens into light 
And deepens into all the flower of May ; 
"With thee is promise of the coming life, 

The glowing hour of Summer's rounded height, 
The golden glory of deep Autumn's day. 



116 



SONJS^ETS 



SOKN^ET SEQUENCE. 
I. 

I care not wliat the colour of her hair ; 

Her beauty cometh not from dark or fair : 

For round her head Love's haloed glories throw 

A luminous light more soft and brilliant far 

Than on the evening's front its tender star 

Burns clear above the sunken sun below. 

I never saw the colour of her eyes ; 

I only care to know that in them lies 

A limpid depth that melts before the gaze 

In softer deeper lights expanding clear 

Into the soul's intenser atmosphere ; 

And there I worship uttering praise 

To God's high craft, that he has made to shine 

Such wondrous beauty in so fair a shrine. 

II. 

Love never jests, though in his words at times 
He seems to laugh in folly's motley mood, 
And like a fool makes merry with stale rhymes 
To jangle down the plaints of solitude. 
Alas ! his mirth is but a mask to hide 

117 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

The gnawing fire that 'neath this mummery 

glows ; 
Though all seem fair upon the outward side, 
Within there dwell a host of warring woes. 
Despair with pallid front now seeks to drive 
Hope from the citadel, who fain would stay ; 
And so these two in war contending strive, 
While gentle Love stands trembling at the fray : 
Come thou, fair Queen, and end this cruelty. 
For Love allegiance owes and pays alone to thee. 



III. 

What is to love ? Let Love the answer give : 

It is to lose thyself, thyself to die. 

And yet in dying find that thou dost live ; 

To spend thy being's breath upon a sigh, 

And draw all joy where mostly thou dost grieve : 

Yet in the breathing of thy life away 

New life, more life the fond soul seems to gain ; 

And though each hope that comes, refuse to stay, 

For all that go, a budding host remain. 

To love is both to die and live again ; 

Unto thine other self thyself to give. 

Surrendering all the good that thou mayst hold, 

Losing thyself to find a hundred-fold, 

The lesser yielding that the greater learn to live. 

118 



SONNETS 



IV. 

What pain for love will not the heart endure ! 

The heaviness that comes of fell despair, 

The agony of hopes that vain allure, 

And in the seizing vanish in thin air, 

Like desert images unto the eyes 

Of one, who sees a flowering paradise 

Along a stretch of placid waters cool, 

Where shades of palm shield off the burning 

ray, 
And yielding turfe beside a limpid pool 
Invite to rest forever and a day — 
An empty mirage by a barren way. 
As one all desolate in lonely lands, 
Cries out and prays with weak uplifted hands, 
From this sad waste to thee I cry, O Love, and 

pray. 

V. 

When she's not near, then pleasure flies my life, 
And misery and I sit down and moan. 
And make a sad complaint like man and wife, 
Who bear Love's chains when Love himself has 

flown. 
And when I think of all her presence is. 
And then do reckon all the gain I miss, — 

119 



The DEATH of SIE LAUNCELOT 

The dead dull night for want of her clear eyes, 
The scentless air for lack of her sweet breath, 
The absent music of her fond replies, — 
Life's emptiness is but the ghost of death. 
An exile from the happy light, I brood 
Upon the bitterness my soul now tastes, 
In desolation worse than desert wastes 
Or polar fields of starless solitude. 



VI. 

What offering shall I make unto my love, 

What worthy treasure lies in my slight store ? 

When I do count its slender contents o'er, 

Alas ! its poverty does only move 

To tears, that I should find myself so poor : 

Mine not the glory of great deeds in war, 

Mine not the laurel of poetic brows. 

Mine not the lustre of the civic star, 

Nor any meed that sparing fame allows ; — 

How rich in worth is she, how poor my house ! 

All wealth of glorious deeds at her dear feet 

I deem an offering only just and meet, 

And I, O grief ! my empty hands uplift ; 

Alas ! what hope may be for me who have no 



gift! 



120 



SONNETS 



VII. 

Enclasped in thy dear thouglit, O sweet Love, 

hold 
Me innermost and highest influence, 
As dwells within the rose-leaves' tender fold 
The subtle life that breathest sweetly thence 
Its fragrant beauty to the raptured sense. 
Ah, soon the gentle life of flowers will die, 
And into nothingness their beauties fade. 
But Love is an eternal gift, and I 
With it would always live, immortal made 
In its sweet largess. Then unto thine eye 
Let me be chiefest light, and colour give 
To all else thou mayst see, and all delight 
Of living make for thee ; for life is light. 
And I would be the light that makes thee live. 



VIII. 

In full effulgence flood the world with light, 
O Sun, thy fiery course soon run and die ; 
And on fleet-footed flying steps, O Night, 
Wheeling thy million fires in haste pass by ; 
Haste, Life, and breathe this lingering day away, 
As frozen breath upon the winter air. 
That suffers for the instant swift delay, 

121 



The DEATH of SIE LATJNCELOT 

But melts ere eye has time to trace it there ; 
Or else with dreamless opiate come, O Sleep, 
And shutting out this slow- paced lapse of things, 
In deepest slumber this sad present steep, 
Until the morrow all its promise brings : 
So would I cheat slow Time, who now cheats me, 
And holds me bond, where Love alone can make 
me free. 



IX. 

And why should I be born to change and chance, 
Evil's rebuff and good things gone askance, 
Time's torturous doubt and Fortune's circum- 
stance ? 
Pursuing visions Hope has made to snare, 
Loath prisoner to watchful jailer, Care, 
Lost victim of inquisitor. Despair ! 
In vain succession seeking permanence, 
Emphantomed by the fleeting ghosts of sense, 
O sliding Life, what barren recompense ! 
The Present from the Future borrowing good. 
The Past forever tombing present good. 
All parts of Time a thieving brotherhood ! 
Yet let my Love but look with her bright eyes, 
And all this desert blossoms into Paradise ! 



122 



SONNETS 



I ask thee for thy love, but it must be 

In hearts that give and take this gift most blest 

Of all that dwell within the human breast, 

Sweet interchange of mutual liberty ; 

For love is no true gift, save it be free. 

And if of freedom it be not possest, 

I ask it not; for I am as a guest 

"Who but receives as thou mayst give to me. 

Then say that we together shall abide 

As host and guest within Love's sacred home, 

Each gaining freedom in the other's gift. 

Each yielding up the loneliness of pride, 

I never more in barren ways to roam, 

And thou no more on stormy seas to drift. 



XT. 
MIZPAH. 

Though Ocean 'twixt us pour its watery war, 
And soaring mountains frowning barriers rear j 
Though Time divide by an unceasing year. 
And Space with all its utmost limits bar. 
Yet in His watching ever art thou near, 
And I from thee can never be afar. 
And Love, that built this universal frame, 

123 



The DEATH of SIR LAUKCELOT 

And thy sweet heart that beats all love for me, 
Breathes benediction in that holiest name 
Of love with promise of eternity. 
So sealed by that dear bond we twain shall go, 
TJnsundered by the walls of Time and Space, 
Together through the sounding pass of woe, 
Till that high Love look on us face to face. 



124 



JUL 29 1902 



AUG. 2 1902 



